I have written about the Pump-Store energy project in the Carmel near Haifa, which would have pumped water to the reservoir on top of the hill during the night when electricity is cheap, and generate and sell electricity during the peak demand hours. A clean energy project as any, no atom splitting nor fossil oil burning. Only last year it was proclaimed a "National Priority Project" meaning that all bureaucratic obstacles would be eliminated.
Today, the project was killed by our chief, Bibi Netaniyahu. The Municipality of Nesher, a small town near the site, is opposed to the development and they found a way to assessinate it through coalition politics.
I was brought up in a Stalinist regime dedicated to industrialize rural Hungary. Each new factory was celebrated and each drainage channel was a triumphal step toward Socialism. The killing of this project is incomprehensible, irrational, deeply revolting for me. It appears that the people of Nesher hate economic development and they purposefully sabotage progress. In Hungary of my times they would have been sentenced for antisocialists and forced to evacuate their homes. These people dream of living in an Alpine valley with freely roaming gazelles in nature.
Maybe it is time for me to discard my early education.
9 comments:
On the other hand, pump storage produces no net energy of its own - there are even "friction" losses. While helpful in evening out demand, it doesn't really contribute much in the long run.
There are some ideas for using electric cars as a form of storage. Most of the time, many cars are parked and plugged in to the charger. At periods of high demand you could pull from their batteries (giving appropriate credit against charging costs).
K
Pump-storage projects are wonderful accumulators of energy. Most electricity sources cannot be stopped and continue generating electricity even when there is no demand (nuclear reactors, wind fields, and so on). These projects save great amount of energy.
But people here prefer the illusion of the Alps. Soon we will destroy infrastructure to save some likeable vampire like in California.
Does Israel have nuclear generated electricity or significant wind power? I thought the main source for electricity in Israel was coal and gas?
K
In some ways this is a function of Israel's wealth since if these people were poorer they would want the project as a source of employment. The local residents must have reasoned that they are wealthy enough to pass on having part of their landscape torn apart in the name of progress.
I don't know. Carbon is probably dirty if you ask me. I don't claim certainty. I'm not conversant with the literature. I just think it's unlikely that a strong consensus of physical scientists is false. I'd say there's a 30% chance they are wrong, tops.
It seems like every time I meet someone saying that the problems of nuclear energy are exaggerated, they seem so smart and lucid and detailed.
The one contingent that drives me bananas is the radical techno-optimists. Just something about them makes me clench my fists and shriek. 'Of course they'll invent something that'll get it back out of the air!' Aiieeee! Only the halting-aging-within-our-lifetimes people are worse.
Israel generates its electricity mostly burning coal and natural gas. But the plants cannot be turned down at night, when there is little use for the electricity and it is sold at a very low price.
As far as I know, it IS possible to turn down a gas fired plant. However, of course you then are wasting the capital cost of the plant and also during the day at peak demand you will need another. So pump storage can make sense, even for fossil fuel powered systems. Of course for environmental whackos and not in my back yard (NIMBY) types, nothing should be built, ever. There is always a good reason not to build anything at all.
K
Nesher city fathers are not completely stupid. The project would have paid municipal taxes but they had bad experience with a hated polluting cement industry in the past.
Yes, a harmless pump storage reservoir is JUST LIKE a cement kiln. I'd say they are stupid - to a "green" idiot, all industry is equally bad - we should all live in caves, provided we do not disturb the native fauna already living there.
K
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